jakec asked: "I have to ask you something," the young girl sent over gchat. Reflexively he opened a new tab and clicked the bookmarked link to quickmeme, thoughts racing as to which template would be most appropriate to respond with, but then he got another message. "Serious question." His fingers went limp. His expression sobered. His inner Good Guy Greg took over.

Jake C., everyone! (Who hopefully doesn’t mind me posting this publicly.)

My esteemed colleague Loni The Linguist also responded to my complaint thusly:

since you can’t read body language or hear the tone of someone’s voice in digital culture, these are the cues we have to work with

Right, and that friction of intent (combined with the potential for anonymity) is the seed of all trolling, snarking, and asshat-ery online. People can be jerks in real life too, of course, but what troubles me is the way that internet conversations seem to be spiraling toward sarcasm (or irony or meme-ness or whatever you call it) as the default attitude. Our troubled hero Greg is the perfect example: only when forewarned of a serious question does he pocket his cleverness and pay attention. Don’t get me wrong—I love clever gifs/air-quoting/all that and I think people like me just need to lighten up sometimes—but in many cases I sense the kind of one-upsmanship at work where people aren’t ‘listening’ to each other so much as waiting for their chance to make a really ripping comment. Digital culture often seems predicated on speaking (or perhaps shouting), not being spoken to, and I think that’s a dangerous attitude for people to get used to.

Anyway, enough Sean Telling People How To Be for one day. Who needs a drink?

There is something fatally wrong with digital culture when a person who is asking another person a genuine question has to preface his/her genuineness—“Serious question,” “Not loaded…really interested,” etc.—before it can feel like a real conversation is happening.

When a no-longer-topical band comes out with a good new song, it forces us to throw our cards on the table and cop to our core values. Some people call it the Tyranny of the New, others call it Relevance, and many more (me?) don’t call it anything but still behave according to its principles. A few years ago when I started DJing at friends’ parties and such, I had a rule that anything between 1 and, oh, 7-10 years old was off-limits. You either play brand new (“relevant”) songs or you play songs old enough to carry an acknowledgement of age (“nostalgia”). Anything from that self-imposed dead zone felt stale and chewed-up, old enough for everyone to be bored with it but not old enough to trigger strong memories. As a DJ (or, for the sake of the argument, any public consumer of music) it would make you seem dorky and out-of-touch, not cool enough to be familiar with culture’s cutting edge the way you’re supposed to be. I’m not as strict about adhering to my dumb rule anymore, but I think I still do it on a subconscious level because, quite frankly, it works. I also suspect I’m not alone.

The funny thing is, even when you’re not choosing or performing your taste publicly, this same idea can govern the way you think about new music. In 2004, a once-moderately-hyped indie pop quartet called The Shins had a Moment. It was such a Moment, in fact, that most writers (including me, it seems) can’t review their subsequent work without mentioning it. You know how Christian Bale’s Patrick Bateman does more actual music criticism in American Pyscho talking about Phil Collins and Huey Lewis than John Cusack’s record store-owning Rob Gordon does in all of High Fidelity, but no one notices because of, y’know, the serial killer stuff? To me, the Natalie Portman Effect sorta works the same way. Her Garden State character’s dictim that The Shins will “change your life” is so absurdly nullifying, so hilariously sweeping that it cemented The Shins’ legacy before most people even heard them. It’s an anti-critical endorsement that continues to trump any critical endorsement one could give. (Thank goodness for Chutes Too Narrow, right?) Because the Moment was so big for an indie act—a Hollywood starlet in a successful motion picture endorsing the most prominently-featured band on its wildly popular soundtrack—the explosion of attention around The Shins had the adverse effect of freezing them in time in the public consciousness. No matter how much (or how little) music they’ve put out since, they are 2003-4 all the way down.

But James Mercer hasn’t done himself many favors in this realm, either. It’s been almost five years since the last Shins album—a fact that could probably banish them to has-been status by itself—and with news that he’d summarily fired the rest of the band and started over with a fresh crop of backing players, the idea of a new record has started to seem messy and a little desperate. (Not to mention…irrelevant?) “Despite the drastic changes to the musical landscape over the last half-decade, there’s still room for tracks like ‘Simple Song’,” concluded Larry Fitzmaurice in his BNMing track review. And though they were characteristically divided on its quality, the gang of critics at The Singles Jukebox also found themselves frequently hearkening back to the band’s past. This isn’t just a case of evaluating a song within the context of a band’s career, it’s an acknowledgment that The Shins’ shelf life has extended beyond their 15 minutes. The subtitle on the TSJ entry is “Remember 2003?,” as if that were the only year anyone ever listened to this band. You can hardly blame them, of course, but it does make this track seem ill-fated right out of the gate, no?

I like to think that some of “Simple Song“s anthemic qualities—the “Baba O’Riley” windmilling, the spine-chilling background melody that ascends the scale with tenuous urgency—are there as markers of hope, trying to convince your ears that The Shins, such as they are, still have enough spark and vitality to be a presence in the lives (if not the culture) of people in 2012. Whether or not you buy it depends on your relationship with their past, I suppose, but it’s worth noting that Mercer has remained fairly true to his musical self. His sense of melody, always scraping at the upper edges of his range, remains as simultaneously meticulous and delicate as ever, confirming that at least in the abstract sense he couldn’t write a not-catchy tune if he tried. “Simple Song” is recorded as a lithe pop ditty, too, the guitars never overwhelming the rhythm section’s sense of balance, even as they lead to and stomp all over those downbeats. It’s true that Mercer has neither the charisma nor the cojones to be a convincing rock frontman—he’s too boyish and wistful—but that’s why we’re fortunate his new attempt at power-pop still emphasizes pop over power. We don’t have to strain to accept a contrived performance.

Either The Shins are aware of this dubious sense of modesty or (far more likely) it’s intentionally built in. Mercer’s always tended toward knotty lyrics that hinge on, um, unusual images, but here he tones down some of the fancier flights and offers what may be his first straightforward love song. “Well this is just a simple song to say what you done,” he begins, in thrall to a woman who has apparently made him a much happier person, “I told you ‘bout all those fears, and away they did run—you sure must be strong!” I suppose there’s some eye-rolling linkage to be found here between Mercer’s saved-by-a-girl revels and the plot of the film that boosted his tax bracket, but let’s not kid ourselves into thinking this isn’t a near-universal trope in popular music. And anyway, the more compelling lines come when he turns from her to face us directly. “I know that things can really get rough when you go it alone,” goes the chorus, offering encouragement through its sympathy. “Don’t go thinking you gotta be tough.” This isn’t exactly groundbreaking advice to get from a vulnerable-sounding singer, but it’s sage wisdom nonetheless. By the end of “Simple Song,” it seems Mercer’s learned his lesson, too: “Love’s such a delicate thing that we do, with nothing to prove.” And as he shouts out his new-found sense of assurance—maybe in love or maybe just in his band’s place in the world—what can we do but cheer him on?

Anonymous asked: when the top 2011 albums post will arrive? :P

Oh, about three weeks ago.

They’re shooting for loud, noisy (read: Sleigh Bells-y) R&B, which is not a bad impulse in and of itself, especially since experimenting with modern R&B is the hip thing for indie bands to do right now (Katherine St. Asaph compared “Comeback Kid” to Mya on Popdust yesterday, which is apt). In order to get there, though, they’ve sacrificed much of the exclamatory and experimental power of their early stuff. Good R&B takes nuance and a certain sense of intimacy (which is why vocals are often close-mic’d and melismatic), traits you definitely wouldn’t associate with this band. So yes, credit Sleigh Bells for at least trying to work their way to a sound that’s more ‘mature’ and more widely accessible…

…But none of that changes my original sense that it’s just not working. I find it disheartening that both songs they’ve put up from the album are built exactly the same way. That’s part of what I mean when I say their idea of a song is getting narrower. Ever hear the old demo version of “Kids,” called “Beach Girls?” There was barely any guitar on it, but it was still warped and overdriven. It rode that same line that “A/B Machines” and “Crown on the Ground” did between extreme, catchy bounce and ear-splitting audio assault. The ‘riffs’ on those songs sounded as much like fire alarms as they did music, which to me was the most fascinating thing about them. It was as if Sleigh Bells were simultaneously celebrating and pointing out the painful lunacy of big, bright, shiny sounds. Listening to the two new songs, it becomes apparent that, pleasurable though they may be, they’re no longer interested in exploring those boundaries. Bubblegum verse-chorus-verse songs need more room to breathe than they’re being given and hardcore thrashing becomes boring when it’s lashed to such linear structure. I wonder if there’s some other aspect of pop—some untenable sense of attitude—that was embodied in their best work instead of the form of pop we get here. I’m sure lots of people (myself included, maybe) will enjoy Reign of Terror for what it is, but it’s disappointing to see them aim so squarely for a middle ground they’re not even well-suited to.